


Juno Steel and the Festival of Silk

by MakeAStriderSmile



Category: The Penumbra Podcast
Genre: Established Relationship, M/M, Multi, POV Juno Steel, Some Canon-Typical Violence, Valentine's Day, Valentine's Day! In! Space!, if you like hearing about the history of a place that doesnt yet exist then this is for you!, marge voice (i just think hes neat), some canon-typical monologues
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-14
Updated: 2020-02-14
Packaged: 2021-02-22 09:16:07
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,668
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22713709
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MakeAStriderSmile/pseuds/MakeAStriderSmile
Summary: The crew arrive on Venus for some repairs and resupplying. Juno is... not equipped to handle tech maintenance. So errand boy it is.Only it seems like today's a kind of special day on Venus, and the nameless thief wants to show this dame a good time, so... what's the harm?---Yeah so my first TPP fic is a valentine's fic, kinda wild but i live vicariously through these two! So join me if you like fluff, dancing and a hardboiled ex-detective getting soft, join me, friends, in Juno Steel and the Festival of Silk.
Relationships: Buddy Aurinko & Peter Nureyev & Rita & Jet Sikuliaq & Juno Steel & Vespa, Peter Nureyev/Juno Steel
Comments: 17
Kudos: 62





	Juno Steel and the Festival of Silk

**Author's Note:**

> lemme say a quick shout out to rey, whose fic about peter's bottomless pockets inspired me to keep on going with this fic when i got stuck! you brightened my heart, thank you so much!
> 
> uh, i dont think theres really any warnings, but if there's any you see and think i should mention, please leave them in the comments and i'll put them here! enjoy the fic!

We arrive on Venus sometime around dawn, Buddy tells me, though I had a hard enough time telling Martian time, let alone Solar Standard Time, especially on a ship that was artificially lit. It’s enough to shove myself into a pair of sweats and a t-shirt, nobody told me what the weather was gonna be like here, and as far as I knew, we’d just be grocery shopping, no need for the nice skirts and tailored button ups, just my usual loungewear. 

It’s enough time for me to do my hair, to pull it back into something that’ll cover the scar that I got from an unfortunate incident with the president of the planet, though I slather the thing in concealer beforehand, one Buddy had grabbed for me because even 38 years later, I still had no clue how to match makeup to my skin. Not that I thought I’d ever run into the president here, but it was better to be safe than sorry when you still had another two major heists planned. Better to keep your face away from the cameras, just in case you’re still, as far as you know, not allowed to legally enter the planet.

That incident was on Mars, he was in the wrong place at the right time, and I had debts that were miles wide to one Valles Vicky. His plasma blade carved a path through my cheek, my blaster caught him in the forehead, and I earned myself seventeen stitches, a nasty scar, and a reduced stay with the Vixens for the sheer audacity of ‘I mugged the president of Venus on accident, want his stuff?’.

(I kept one of the rings for a rainy day, pawned it off the day before the big guy took us off and up into the stars. Made some damn good money off it, too, enough to buy some new clothes, a new eyepatch. Didn’t realise I’d need to make a good first impression so soon, but to be fair, the sand I was choking on when he saw me probably wasn’t going to make my first (third, the second time he’d come back for you, don’t fuck it up this time) impression anything but awkward and kinda funny.)

This trip isn’t even for a heist, which is why it’s so weird that I feel like it’s such a huge deal. We landed the  _ Carte Blanche  _ for repairs and maintenance on some part of the navigation system that I was so far from understanding it was funny. I found out my comms could take a screenshot yesterday and it blew my goddamn mind. Rita had pushed me out the doors this morning with a chirpy, “Lookin’ real pretty there, Mista Steel, how ‘bout you go far away from all’a the sensitive computer equipment and pick up somethin’ nice we can make for dinner together, maybe some snacks while you’re at it!” and then  _ closed the doors behind me _ .

I should’ve fired her when I had the chance. 

God, I love her so damn much.

And so I stepped out of the landing bay and into a vibrant sea of…. Red? 

Reds and pinks and pastels of every shade I could think of, and some I couldn’t, silks strung along the streets. Clearly there was some kinda festival going on here. We’d really picked the wrong time to land on this planet. I wasn’t any kinda expert on what happened on Venus, but I knew for damn sure we didn’t have holidays like this on Mars.

I instantly feel underdressed. God, I should have asked for his advice.

“Ah, there you are, Juno!” And there he is. Speak of the silver-tongued devil and he’ll appear with a smile as if you were right where he wanted you.

Nureyev looks like he’s taken half the festival’s silk and wrapped it around himself, wearing a flowing skirt that looks like it could very well contain every shade in the rainbow, a pink corset that- yep, there’s the roses. I smile, before I can stop myself. He really just can’t help himself with those, can he? It’s like he’s showing off. 

Not that the view is bad.

His blouse is some cream color I don’t have the art senses to place, though maybe it’s some kind of pale… something, I can’t really tell, with billowy sleeves, sleeves I’m sure he’ll be putting to their fullest use during our trip today. I try not to mind. It’s just something I’ve had to get used to since joining Buddy’s crew, and honestly, it’s not like I’m any better than he is.

“What the hell is all this?” I ask him as he extends a gallant arm my way, one I take with a roll of my eye as he beams his pointy grin at me and starts leading me through the main road, and then down a side road, and then another, pointing out murals of rich paints and spray paints alike, sprayed onto the sides of solid brick walls. The buildings he was weaving us through were old, older than the city up ahead, and I realise he’s giving me the scenic tour.

The best the galaxy has to offer, every nook and cranny of beauty and history he can squeeze out of it, and he’s showing it to me. 

I lean into his side with a smile that feels surprisingly comfortable, and Nureyev stops in his explanation of some old Venusian architecture, something he must have picked up during one of his cons, asking, “Are you alright, my dear?”

“Yeah, I’m just fine, Peter.” He’d finally given in on letting me call him by his first name out in public. It wasn’t like I could go around calling him Nureyev everywhere, and it just felt… wrong. Calling him Ransom. Felt like crisp white suits and a floating city that was far enough away for his liking, a city he wanted to  _ stay  _ far away. “Just keep on goin’ with the architecture talk, if my eyes glaze over, just nudge me.” And then I lean into him a little more and his arm slides from mine to curl around my waist, fingers curved into my hip.

“But of course,” He concedes with a smile in his voice, eyes shining behind prescription lenses, his own lenses instead of Ransom’s today, the thick black frames instead of the thin silver pair that made him look kinda pretentious. He walks us along and I… well, honestly, I zone out. I’m safe with Nureyev, and it’s not every day I get to have a history lesson about a planet I never thought I’d visit, walking its sparsely populated streets.

He talks, sure, I’m kind of not listening but the cadence of his voice is the kind that means that I’m probably safe to not listen for a little longer, too busy playing tourist and gawking at abstract art pieces decorating an alley, old cars that look like they’ve been rusting for years, hell they probably have been, Venus was pretty much all traversable on foot ever since the 23rd century, where a good three quarters of inhabitable space became very uninhabitable very quickly, reducing it to its main city and little towns like this, spilling out from its edges. It’s all impressive, and even if I’m not listening to a word Peter’s saying, I’m sure he’s thinking the exact same thing.

And then we get to the main square, bustling and loud, and I finally tune back in on what he’s saying. “..scinating, isn’t it, darling? Old Earth history, combined with Ancient Earth mythology! And what a festival it is, if I may say so. One of the most beautiful in the Solar system, I would wager.” And there’s Nureyev’s tour guide voice, the one he puts on when he gets so excited about the place they’ve landed that he just  _ has  _ to show everyone the local wonders, the street vendors, the holes in the wall, places where people recognise him, places they don’t, and it’s  _ fascinating _ , isn’t it just  _ fascinating _ , Juno? He uses that word a lot, and I haven’t gotten tired of it yet. Maybe give it another planet or three.

It’d be hot if he didn’t kinda sound like a history teacher. Not that he couldn’t rock that look if he set his mind to it. Hm. He could probably make the teacher thing work, hell, he probably had plenty of times before. Tweed, elbow patches and a touch of grey at the temples. ...Focus, Steel, focus. You can tell him all about  _ that  _ later.

“Yeah, ah… I kinda tuned out a bit there, babe, mind walkin’ me back a bit? You were saying there’s a festival going on, right, something that’s somehow Old Earth and Ancient Earth stories all in one.” I have to admit to him, scratching at my cheek with a rueful smile, a smile that weakens a little as I feel concealer under my nails. Shit, of course I had to scratch that cheek, the one with the damn scar. I try to rub what’s there back onto my face, and of course, Nureyev picks up on it, cupping my cheek in his hand and working his thumb gently into the scarred up skin. I don’t really know if it looks decent, but Nureyev seems appeased, which is good enough for me.

We keep walking toward a bench decorated with flowing ribbons, each with something written on them in languages that were both familiar and unfamiliar to me, and we sit before I can inspect them further, though I do twist to look at them when we’re sitting, ribbons of all colors and styles, patterned and plain, lacy and bold, all with names written onto them with black ink. My curiosity sated, I finally turn back to him to find him watching me with that same amused little smirk he used to get when he watched me gather clues for a case. I gesture for him to go on, putting on my best listening face. 

“Alright then, from the top.” He doesn’t sound exasperated. He knows I’m bad at listening when I’m not engaging with whatever it is, and he tries his damnedest to make it so I’ll either actually understand or at least enjoy his retelling of whatever it was, from a quick heist to a history lesson to a deeply personal story from his youth that he wanted to tell me, wanted someone else to hear.

I love this guy  _ so goddamn much _ .

“You know of the gods and goddesses of ancient times, I’m sure.” And he smiles cheekily at that, making me bark out a laugh. Juno, mother goddess, protector, hell of a mean streak. Sure, I knew the gods. I knew the planet we were on was named after one, or maybe it was the other way round, I hadn’t paid a whole lot of attention in that class except for when they’d mentioned Juno and every eye in the room turned to look at me. Hell of a way to find yourself, dozing off and then finding a classroom full of judgy adolescents (Ben, Mick and Sasha not included, never included, unless you counted Sasha’s deadpan stares of disapproval) staring at you.

“I know ‘em. Venus is named after one, god of…” And then I realise. And I look around the square. I see couples, trios, groups, all dancing to tenderly strummed guitar, the chords winding through the crowd and somehow making all the hustle and bustle and conversation seem… magical, or something. I see benches just like this one where people sit and smile and eat and kiss. I see partners writing on ribbons and tying them to the loops in the benches, and I continue, a little amused, voice soft, “You took me to a romantic festival. Peter, you sap.”

“Ah, well-” And at this, I look over. He’s  _ blushing _ , actually blushing, high cheekbones dusted ruddy pink and I want so badly to kiss every inch of blush-painted skin. “-I’d like to say it was on purpose, but we really did need to do maintenance. But of course, I did my research and.. Mm. I thought it might be.. Nice. For us. To do something a little lower stakes than a heist or some lifting of a few antiques for incidental pocket change.”

“‘Cept for the ones you’ve got in your pockets that you took while we were walking through the crowd.” I drawl lazily, which actually seems to surprise Nureyev, who frowns, taking the hand not wound around my shoulders and patting down the bottomless pockets of his flowing skirts.

“I didn’t take any-” He starts as he shoves the hand into one pocket, only to stop, looking a little sheepish as his hand clearly finds some stolen goods. Probably one of the bracelets I watched him absentmindedly lift off one of the patrons that had been leaving the festival, too drunk to notice their jewelry transferring from wrist to pocket. “Well. What can I say, dear. Old habits and sticky fingers make for full pockets.”

“Pretty sure you’ve never had full pockets in your life, despite all the shit you shove into them. And that’s definitely not a saying, you made that up.” I reply easily as I lean up to kiss his cheek. “It’s fine, though, I believe you when you say you didn’t mean to. So. Tell me all the boring history about the festival, then let’s go get one’a those ribbons and make out somewhere the surveillance cameras can’t catch us.”

And so he does. An ancient spin on an already old holiday, the Feast of Saint Valentine, turned by humans all over earth into an over-glorified display of empty sentimentality. Trying to one up one another with gifts and grand gestures and flowers, flowers galore. Flowers didn’t grow on Venus, not without real tender coaxing, so only the bigwigs could really buy and sell those. But the working class, the people really  _ living _ on Venus? Well, they made do the best they could with ribbons and fabrics, turning a yard of silk into roses and ribbons and flowers of every kind and color in the Solar system (and some from the Outer Rim, or so Nureyev told me with a softness that made me think he’d seen some flowers from home when he’d gone to scope the place out for surveillance and the kind of security that might necessitate them covering their faces).

Apparently the reds and pinks were for the romantic stuff, the hot and heavy kinda love. (Nureyev grins at me in a way I’m a little ashamed to say I like at that one.)

There’s greens and purples in all shades for partnerships of people that didn’t feel romantic or sexual attraction but still engaged in relationships, platonic or purely sexual. I took some pictures of people wearing flags and beautiful ribbons in their hair to bring back to Jet. Figured he might like it, some ribbons to match the Ruby 7.

There’s golds, blues, jewel tones, for love that didn’t need labels, didn’t need restrictions, love like freedom. I saw pairs and trios and groups that sometimes came up to ten or eleven strong, all decorated in jewel tones, dotted with reds and pinks and purples and greens and pastels, all unified by the way they looked at each other, a love you just couldn’t mistake for anything else.

There’s soft pastels for familial love, for the kind of platonic partnership that didn’t need love to be strong. I thought about picking some of those ribbons up for Rita. Might be nice to braid them into her hair later, to put in a box with pictures of a person that looked just like me, to maybe take back to Mars someday, far, far from today, and leave on my mother’s grave.

And then there’s shimmering silk that seems to hold multitudes, shifting colors, the silk that everyone in the square was wearing on at least one piece of clothing, and I could see now that Nureyev’s blouse wasn’t silky cream, it was this silk. How quickly had he had to set all of this up while I showered and changed? It wasn’t like I was a slow groomer, I didn’t even bother  _ shaving  _ for this trip.

They called it the Festival of the Goddess, for Venus, goddess of love and truth, apparently, and I was… speechless. And you don’t get that from me often, let me tell you.

“Do you like it?” Nureyev asks, as if he doesn’t already see the answer on my face, and I have to laugh, a laugh that bubbles out of me and rings out, mixing with guitar and laughter and the soft talking of lovers, pulling him in to kiss him, surveillance be damned. His petal pink lipstick smears against my lips, I can feel it, but hey, it probably looks good on me anyway. At least, by the look in his eyes when I pull away, it does.

“I love it. It’s amazing, Peter. Thank you. For taking me here.” I have to push down the nasty voice inside my head that sounds too much like me and still too much like my mother to do anything but sting, the voice that says that I’m being too sincere, too clingy, that talk like that was a good way to get your heart broken. I can’t know that it’s true, I’m trying to get better about it, but it’s not like I can get into his head- well, not anymore.

But Nureyev looks at me like I’ve given him all the moons of Jupiter on a necklace, stolen out of the sky for him, and he pulls me close, lean arms circling around me, pressing painted lips into my crown and murmuring softly, “I had so hoped you would say that, my Juno. I had wanted to take you here, wanted to wrap you up in silks and kiss you while we danced the evening away. But this… it’s even better. I got to show you around, to show you the beauty hidden within the city during the morning hours, to bring you here at the height of celebration. I could not have asked for a better day, and I thank you, sincerely, for joining me. Here, and wherever we go to next, my love.”

Fuck, why did he always have to go and make me wanna cry, talking all soft, telling me about all the plans he’d made, plans he could finally take me up on. There’s only really one thing to say to all that, voice hitching as I tell him, “I love you.”

And he smiles into my hair and tells me right back, “And I love you, my goddess, my shining star. Shall we go? I do still wish to wrap you in beautiful silks and dance with you. You said you knew some Venusian dances, didn’t you? And you can hardly dance in this, though you look just as ravishing in sweatpants as you do in your finery, darling.”

And he sweeps me up and off the bench as I laugh, and I laugh through the whole day, actually, dragged to a tailor, leaving in swathes of silk in shimmering multitudes around the bodice, pinks and blushes and reds that layered down to form an eyecatching skirt, layers that fanned out whenever I spun, a new patch embroidered with a bright red rose to finish off the look. I make an aside to him about dahlias and he grins, drags me to a stall and pins silken dahlias into my hair with the kind of gentle touch that made me feel like a classy dame batting eyes at his charming suitor.

He shows me a silk flower, white in the center and dappled lilac at the edges, vaguely lily-like but not quite. Tells me it’s a Brahmese rose, and, yeah, I wouldn’t have pinned ‘rose’, but it kinda suits us, doesn’t it? I buy it for him and tuck it behind his ear, stroking through artfully tousled waves with the other hand, and his smile is Nureyev’s through and through now, eyes soft as he tells me about apple green fields in which it grows, tells me that they grow like honeysuckle and taste just as sweet. He tells me he used to wear them like a crown, like a king, even on his darkest, coldest, hungriest days. I kiss his forehead and tell him he looks very kingly to me and he lets out a sweet peal of laughter I immediately want to capture and keep forever.

I buy ribbons for Rita, I buy her pastel peaches and lemon yellows and soft pinks to match her outfits, for Buddy and Vespa, reds and pinks and golds, I buy ribbons for Jet, deep greens and greens that match his car, purples that could weave into his hair and seem entirely natural, dark as they were.

Peter buys ribbons for us, ribbons in every color of the rainbow, nearly, and asks the shopkeep for instructions on the ribbons tied to the benches. All you had to do was take a fabric pen, write your names on one ribbon each, and tie them together into one long ribbon. Then you loop it through a hole in the bench’s ends, and Venus will smile on you for the next year, blessing your partnership.

I watched as Nureyev’s hand takes a neat, practiced path along the ribbon’s surface. He writes in a language I don’t recognise, and I ask him what he wrote. I never can tell what alias he’s going to use for the day, even Ransom isn’t a sure bet.

“I wrote my name of course, Detective. In my mother tongue. Come along, you next.” He tells me, as if this is just a totally natural thing for him to do, and I gape at him.

“You wrote your-” He cuts me off, gestures with the pen, and I take it and the distraction, resolving to ask in a minute, writing my name onto a baby blue ribbon, Nureyev’s ribbon a soft lilac not unlike the color of the Brahmese rose tucked into his hair as he smiles at me and tucks the rest of the ribbons away to properly admire back on the ship.

We tie it onto a bench tucked far toward the back, only sparsely decorated, and then I sit him down and snap, like I’ve been preparing this rant (I have), “What the hell are you thinking, writing your name on a damn ribbon that anyone could find and read?!”

“I said my mother tongue, Juno, I never said Brahman. Mag taught me a cipher, one that only he and I knew. I learned my name forward and backwards in that cipher, I learned his too, I learned everything in that cipher before I moved onto Brahman, to Solar, to Drukyulan. Nobody knows the key, and nobody will know my name.” 

I simmer down a bit. A secret cipher between thieves. The language dead to everyone but Peter. Yeah, that would probably do it for secrecy. Now he sees I’ve calmed down though, he smirks. “But how was Venus supposed to bless our union if she didn’t know who to bless? Hardly seems reasonable to me now, darling.” Cheeky bastard.

“You woulda found a way. If anyone could con an actual fucking god, it’d be you.” I tell him with all the certainty in the world, and he laughs that soft, delighted laugh that made me fall in love with him the first time, and it feels like I can feel the world stop turning for just a second as the universe stops and  _ listens _ .

“With certainty like that, how could I possibly doubt you? One could do anything they set their mind to with someone looking at them like that, you know.” He’s still looking at me, soft and so in love I wonder how I could’ve ever missed it. How could I ever have missed this?

“Come along, Juno. It’s getting late. I’d like that dance before we return home. Would you be so kind as to oblige me?” Home, he says, taking my hand in his and leading me to the sea of twirling and laughing people. 

Home used to be Hyperion City, with its blue painted skylines and sickly neon billboards. Home used to be Oldtown, shambling buildings falling apart under the weight of promises broken and families lost.

But now, I think, as I lead my boyfriend through the steps of a dance my brother taught me over two decades ago, laughing as my skirts fan out and he claps exuberantly (and so do a bunch of other people, wow, I’ve gotta wear this dress more often), maybe home can be people more than it is a place.

Home is Vespa Ai, callused hands softer than they used to be as they feel for my bruises and tell me to be more careful in sharp words and warm eyes. Her love is a sheathed blade and she doesn’t share it unless she knows you’re gonna deserve it.

Home is Buddy Aurinko, talking me through a plan with a hand on my back , helps me through a panic attack with soft fingers gliding through my hair, guides me along as I learn the ropes of this new opportunity she’s given me. Her love, when you earn it, is as fierce and as bright as she is, and once you’ve earned it, it’s a love you’ve earned for life.

Home is Jet Siquliak, strong coffee made just in time for me to shamble out of my room, wise words ready for damn near every occasion when it looks like I’m faltering, a smile that’s so rare that you’d do anything to see it again. His love is like the digital fireplace that warms the common area, it burns bright but it’s steady as the tide, and you know that he’ll never, never let you down.

Home is Rita. Rita with her snack dusted fingers winding ribbons through my hair when we get back onto the ship, her body tucked into mine as we watch  _ Love Blooms in The Sea _ , a stream series she finally roped me into watching, about some mermaid curse and a plucky young heroine that overcomes it all for love, her voice soft as she tells me, ‘ _Mista Steel, I love you a whole lot. You've come so far, boss, I'm just real happy I got to see the day you realised you could be happy again._ ’. Her love, well, her love was the only thing that kept me alive for nearly 20 years when I thought there wasn’t anything left to love in the whole galaxy. Her love was so damn strong that he wondered how she could contain it all, because she felt it so strongly, so passionately that it came through her every move.

Home is… home is Peter Nureyev. Sharp fox smile curling around my name like it’s something precious, like I’m really some goddess of protection and he’s praying to me to keep his heart safe for him, the one thing I managed to steal that I never, never planned to give back. His onyx chip eyes bright like the inky sky above us as I ask if we could stay a little longer, just for one more dance. His love… his love was _everything_.

And surrounded by my home, and surrounded by love of all shapes, sizes and colors of the rainbow, I laughed and smiled and danced until I couldn’t breathe, kissed him until my lungs burned, loved him with everything I had in me, surrounded by that cologne and the smell of flowers on the breeze. And it felt so magical that for once I didn’t think about what could go wrong. 

I just thought about where we’d go to next.

**Author's Note:**

> ok so this was un-betaed because i wanted to get it out before v-day finishes in australia, i still have like 40 minutes so im golden
> 
> if theres issues im Mega Sorry
> 
> uhhh, hmu at tumblr? @peternuwueyev is the current handle but much like the nameless thief himself, i never stick to a name for long.  
> hope you had a good valentine's day, and may you find your home close to your heart <3


End file.
